Sudacar initialed the notation, scrawled his full signature at the bottom, and rolled up the scroll. He finished by slopping liquefied wax on the seam and pressing his signet ring into the resulting mess.
Stretching out his arms to ease the muscles in his broad shoulders, he muttered, “I’ve had enough of this stuffy little closet.”
The main reception hall of Redstone had been set aside for use by the king’s man. Pillars and arches two stories high rose all about him. Archery contests had been held along the length of the room, and the entire town had gathered within its walls in times of crisis and celebration. Sudacar’s desk was tucked at one end of the hall, with a view of the entire enormous chamber.
Sudacar, former giant-slayer, was a tall, burly man, though, and anywhere the wind could not blow felt stuffy to him.
Time to indulge in one of the prerogatives of office, he thought as he pulled on his coat. “Culspiir,” he bellowed in his booming voice.
Culspiir slid into the room, closing the door softly behind him. The herald’s face appeared so careworn it would have alarmed a stranger. Sudacar was aware, though that Culspiir wore that same expression for all occasions, from weddings to barbarian invasions.
“I’ve gone over all the reports you gave me, Cul,” Sudacar said. “Good work. I thought I’d break for the day,” he added, his brown eyes glittered with all the eagerness of a schoolboy asking for permission to play outside.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve granted someone an interview with you for this hour.”
“Now? Culspiir, how could you schedule someone now? Can’t you see it’s raining? Don’t you realize that the fish are out there searching for my lure?”
“I thought, considering the person and the nature of his problem, that you had best see him today, sir. I’ve kept him waiting more than an hour so you could finish your other duties.”
“Show him in,” Sudacar sighed. He sat back down, but he did not bother to remove his cloak.
Culspiir slipped out, and a moment later Giogioni Wyvernspur stepped in.
Sudacar’s face brightened. “Giogi!” he said with surprise. He rose and extended his hand to the nobleman.
Giogi strode up to Sudacar’s desk, accepted the handshake, and returned the smile. Sudacar’s welcome was a relief after being made to wait so long by the local lord’s herald.
“Culspiir was a dog to make you wait like that,” Sudacar said as if reading his thoughts. “Sorry.”
“Oh, no. I understand. You’ve got lots of work,” Giogi replied, though he suspected Culspiir had kept him waiting as a snub to the Wyvernspurs. The nobleman didn’t resent it too much. After all, the Wyvernspurs had snubbed Culspiir and his master often enough.
“Culspiir just wants to be sure I don’t have any excuses to put his boring papers aside,” Sudacar confided in a whisper. “He doesn’t like me to have any fun.” Sudacar’s expression became serious. “I’m sorry about your uncle, Giogi. He was a fine man. A good wizard, too.”
“Thank you,” Giogi replied softly. “It’s hard to believe. I don’t want to believe it.”
“That’s only natural,” Sudacar said, giving the younger man a comforting pat on the shoulder. “So, tell me,” the local lord said more boisterously, “what brings you here, boy?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Sudacar,” Giogi said, “but, well, things have gotten rather confusing about the spur. I realize Aunt Dorath was a little huffy with Culspiir yesterday, not wanting to tell him about the theft, but the truth is, I could use your advice. I thought maybe there might be something you could tell me about the spur.”
“Well, whatever advice I have is yours, Giogi, but I’m afraid I’ve never seen the spur. I’ve seen others, still on the wyvern, as it were, but not the one you’re looking for.”
“I thought you might know something about it. You knew it was stolen before I—uh, before it got around town.”
Sudacar grinned. “Well, I don’t like to brag, but not all women are as immune to my charms as your aunt,” he said, giving Giogi the same wink that he had the evening before, when he’d admitted to having his own source of information. Giogi wondered idly if the woman in question was a parlor maid or a lady’s maid.
“But, you know some tales about my father,” the nobleman said. “Did you know he used the spur when he went adventuring? That the spur has some magical powers?”
“Does it, now? Well, well.” Sudacar stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I didn’t know that, but it might explain some things I’ve heard.”
“Like what?”
Sudacar abruptly stood. “Tell you what. Why don’t we take a little walk while we talk about it?” He led Giogi toward the door. On the way, the Lord of Immersea pulled a casting pole out of a rack on the wall.
“What’s this for?” Giogi asked.
“We’ll need it to defend ourselves, in case we run into any fish,” Sudacar explained.
“Oh,” Giogi replied as Sudacar held open the hall door for him.
Sudacar hoped to hurtle past Culspiir’s station before his herald could find another excuse to keep him confined, but Giogi stopped at the door, his finger to his forehead, trying to dredge something from the back of his mind.
At last it came to him. “Ah, yes,” the nobleman said. “You know my purse that was stolen?”
“Oh, that,” Sudacar said. “Any word on it, Culspiir?” he demanded of his subordinate.
“It still hasn’t turned up, Master Giogioni,” the herald said as he regarded Sudacar—and his casting rod—with suspicion.
“Well, it won’t,” Giogi said, “because it wasn’t stolen. I’d dropped it right outside home. Found it later,” he explained. “Hope I didn’t cause a fuss.”
Sudacar grunted. “Remind me to let you pick up the tab next time,” he said with a grin. “Culspiir, I’ll be out for the rest of the day in consultation with Master Giogioni.”
“Of course,” Culspiir said, his eyes not leaving the fishing tackle as the two men hurried through his office and out the door.
On the front steps of the manor, they bundled up their cloaks and pulled up their hoods against the rain, which was still icy but far less violent than it had been at noon. They left the castle walls.
As they trudged down toward the Immer Stream, Sudacar explained, “I never actually had the honor of adventuring with your father. To tell the truth, when I met him at court he was already a legend and I was just an apprentice sell-sword. By that time, Cole had single-handedly vanquished the hydra of Wheloon—walked into the beastie’s lair unarmed and walked out alive an hour later. He was all cut up and bleeding, but, as the saying goes, you should have seen the other guy. His Majesty’s troops went into the lair afterward and found the monster everywhere—diced into pieces.”
Behind the privacy of his hood, Giogi tried without success to picture the quiet, gentle man he remembered from his childhood killing anything, even something as fierce as a hydra. His imagination remained as gray as the soft sleet falling around him.
Sudacar began regaling Giogi with a tale of how Cole had let himself be kidnapped by pirates. By the time the local lord had reached the part where Cole sailed the pirate ship into Suzail’s harbor with all the sea thieves in irons, the local lord and the nobleman had reached the bridge where Giogi had encountered Sudacar the day before. The stream’s water was a little faster and the level a little higher. Patches of ice crusted over the stiller shallows near the banks.
Sudacar wasted no time whipping his line out over the water, but he continued with another story about Cole. This story was set, as Sudacar put it, “in ’aught eight,” when the gnolls came down from the north. Saboteurs had burned the bridge over the Starwater. The purple dragoons might never have marched to the Cormyr border’s defense in time had Cole not managed miraculously—and mysteriously—to repair the bridge overnight with no one to help him but Shar, the master carpenter—who later became Cole’s father-in-law.